Sofi Tukker (aka Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern) might not be a household name just yet, but you’ll certainly recognise their sound. Since the release of their Portuguese-language debut ‘Drinkee’ in 2015, vocalist Sophie Hawley-Weld and basketball player turned instrumentalist Tucker Halpern have been fusing her bossa nova adoration with his house style for a series of infectious releases, including 2016’s debut EP Soft Animals. Last autumn, they were picked out by Apple to soundtrack their iPhone X campaign, launching ‘Best Friend’ – a lively ode to friendship penned alongside New York duo The Knocks, Australian twins NERVO, and Japanese newcomer Alisa Ueno – directly to a global audience. During their recent headline tour across Europe, we caught up with the pair to dig into what makes their unlikely friendship so special and find out what they’ve got brewing for 2018.

Coming five years and 10 platinum certifications since they first hit their native charts, the London debut of Sydney-based electronic duo Peking Duk feels long overdue. However, when speaking to The Edge on an open-top Original Tour bus on a crisp December lunchtime between sold-out nights at The Garage and KOKO, Adam Hyde and Reuben Styles already feel right at home. “We went to the West Ham vs. Arsenal game last night – had the time of my life,” Styles says. “It was a 0-0 boring game but there were a lot of loose eastenders out and it was fucking hilarious. It was sick.”

‘Let You Down,’ their fizzy, self-deprecating new release, marks another first, with Hyde debuting his own vocals alongside those of Icona Pop’s Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo. His move comes as the logical next step from the band launching their full Weeknd-inspired live act over the summer at Splendour In The Grass, which one of their crew describes to me as Australia’s equivalent Glastonbury. The result was evidently successful – tastemaking radio station Triple J described the performance as “stepping things up to 11 without sacrificing the simple pleasures of a Peking Duk throwdown” – and, to feature on spring’s impending debut album, it made perfect sense to rekindle a friendship that began with some spilt orange juice in the air years prior. “We met on an aeroplane from Miami to LA,” Hjelt recalls. “We were like, ‘We saw some Australian dudes play last night,’ and you were like, ‘It was actually, kind of, us.’ That was the first meeting, and then we met in Sweden at the Northbound studios [in Stockholm].” Continue reading ““Does anyone know if Whitney Houston did a Christmas song?” – An interview with Peking Duk and Icona Pop”

The way Ellie Rowsell speaks of her recent jaunt to DJ on the Brighton Pier dodgems at Slaves’ Great Escape gig isn’t brimming with enthusiasm – imagine a miserable, rainy Thursday night with decks that don’t entirely work properly. Yet, although it was her only billing during her band’s first summer in five years without a festival tally in the double digits, things aren’t as relaxing as they might seem. Barely nine months on from concluding the run for 2015’s acclaimed debut My Love Is Cool with their first festival headline spot, Wolf Alice has five tour legs in as many months, reaching from Los Angeles to Osaka, lined up around the release of “personal” new record Visions Of A Life. Continue reading ““Hopefully it cements us as a band” – An interview with Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice”

For Off Bloom, the invitation from producer friend Two Inch Punch – who you might know from his work on chart-topping records from Years & Years, Rag’n’Bone Man, and Sam Smith, in addition to the trio’s ferocious February release ‘Falcon Eye’ – to up sticks and head from their longtime base in Copenhagen to join him in his London studio couldn’t have come at a better time. Or, in other words, “Let’s fucking move over here. We’re here all the time anyway.”

Following late 2016’s debut offering of the Love To Hate It EP, the band has toured the UK and beyond in support of Dua Lipa and Polydor labelmates LANY, whilst their summer is turning into a whistlestop tour of electrifying festivals from Brighton to Leeds and everywhere in between. The highlight? Glastonbury, of course, says singer Mette Mortensen. “It was on a stage that was super weird – they had arranged it so it was kind of tables and chairs all the way around, so people were having lunch. When we went on we were like, ‘OK, what is this gonna be?’ But then I jumped out in the audience and then people came in and it ended up being super cool.” Continue reading ““If somebody likes it, there must be a reason” – An interview with Off Bloom”

The ‘ILYSB’ trio spills the beans about their debut album, building a fanbase, and what makes London feel like home.

In the space of just one year, American electropop trio LANY has gone from playing a loft above a Camden bar on a night off from support shows to filling venues ten times the size up and down the land and across the world. With fans already assembled outside and around KOKO in the middle of the afternoon, Surge joined Paul Klein, Jake Goss, and Les Priest up in the rafters to find out all about their plans to make 2017 (and 2018) ((and probably every subsequent year)) the year of LANY.

In July, London-based electro-soul duo HONNE released Warm On A Cold Night, an exquisite compendium of heartfelt musings and engulfing melodies, and their sold-out tour of the nation to support it following a number of sojourns to festival stages across the world saw them take in the chilly sea breeze around The Haunt in Brighton on the first day of 2016’s darker nights. Shortly before the gig we ventured backstage with James Hatcher and Andy Clutterbuck, taking shelter in Liv Dawson‘s tour van to talk about the goings-on of their early musical inspirations, why remixing on the road still proves impractical, and their striking recent releases of a sensual ‘Good Together‘ video and ‘FHKD‘ adorned with Kill J‘s whispers. Continue reading ““Intimate is a good word to describe it” – An interview with HONNE”